Yeah, he made a lot of films that were cool if not totally awesome. I like that he played outside of the rules and didn't seem to be as concerned with making money as most directors. The 70s was the perfect era for him because it was before blockbusters became the standard. IMHO, Altered States fell flat because he tried to play the game and it took the edge off. If they told him just cut a two hour film on some dude tripping his ass off in an isolation tank it would have made a better movie - but only people like you and me would have paid to see it. But who else could make Tommy? Nobody.

Yeah agreed 100% Altered States was a real let down for exactly those reasons.

He made the same mistake the guy made in Dark City imo which was to turn a great idea in the end into a typical hollywood marvel comic. Proyas was literally told by the Hollywood directors to 'dumb it down.'

Saw it. Everybody I knew went to check it out because Re-Animator was huge and that was basically the follow-up by the same group - Stuart Gordon, Jeffrey Combs, etc...

If you like the Who - you have to check out Tommy. Like all Russell's films it has some problems, but it's also well worth the two hours or so if you're into the stuff the Who was making in their prime.

"However, Townshend refused permission for director Michael Moore to play the song over the closing credits of Fahrenheit 9/11, as he was suspicious of Moore's journalistic credentials and did not want his work to be associated with a possibly inaccurate film. Townshend later said "[o]nce I had an idea what the film was about, I was 90% certain my song was not right for them."

Yeah, that about covers it for the Who - they tend to believe their own press. Like the Stones and other dinosaur bands, they had about a 5-year period where they were making some pretty good music. The problem is they stuck around for 50 years living off those 5.